Your thoughts on ATV for small farm please

[Hayla]

I am a single woman living on 8 acres half wooded half pasture. The woods has a problem with blackberries.
I do not want a tractor. The small ones seem to want to tip and the ones that are wider with a low center of gravity seem to be just too big.
I’m not a young woman and I am employed away from my farm. I want buy one of those towable manure vacuums so I can spend more time riding and less field picking.

So my uses would be mostly arena raking and manure vacuuming.

Next priority would be a rough cut mower. I was considering a front attachment. If my machine can’t get it all I can aways rent a tractor once a year. My mower would have to be heavy duty for rough terrain. My property was logged and left pitted. The former owner blew the huge old growth stumps out with dynamite and it was only partially graded before the second stage forest ( think 50 foot high Douglas Fir and Cedars) grew. If I have the right machine to keep it easily maintained it should be easy to keep it that way.

After that I am thinking of putting in composting manure bins so blade would be good.

Next. I’d like to tow a small lightweight trailer with supplies like portable fence panels, repair materials etc around the farm.

My last priority would be possibly snow blowing capability. We don’t get more than a trace of snow most years but every 3 to 5 years we get a huge amount. It would be nice to clear driveways, walkways etc.

I like the idea of the wider two person mule type atv due to the aforementioned tipping issues. I am also considering a roll cage/ lid to keep the sun off my easily burned skin.

I know everyone will have an opinion. I’d love to hear a wide range of opinions. The more educated buyer I am the better. Don’t hold back.
Thank you

[Hilary]

I would suggest a skidsteer - towing a little trailer with fencing supplies and the manure vacuum could be easily done with a riding lawn mower. The rest of it? You need a bigger machine. Skidsteers can move snow, mow with a brushhog and you’ll be safe in the roll cage in the sinkhole-y forested area.

[Kat_the_Horse]

I second the skidsteer. We have been 2 + years on our mini-farm (10 acres pasture and 10 acres rough treeland/brush) and are bumping up against the lack of quality accessories available to be used with our Polaris Sportsman 570. We had a skidsteer available for our first year here and it was marvelous: we put in fences, moved sheds, moved hay and heavy ‘stuff’, cleared endless brush and ‘trash’…even graded and finished our backyard. DH is convinced we need a small tractor, but I can’t help but think that we’d be better with a skidsteer considering how much of our work is heavy lifting and not actual ‘farming’ activities. As for the mowing/vacuuming…I’d look at a zero turn mower with attachments. I LOVE my White ZT and consider it the SECOND most fun to be had on the farm!

[Bluey]

You can rent/lease a tractor, then a skid-loader and see which one does more for you.

UTVs don’t have enough power to handle a blade pushing anything but the lightest stuff, or any real snow.
They are great for other things like dumping the box and carrying stuff.

I think you may need more than one machine for what you want to do.

[AKB]

What about a small Kubota tractor with a small front end loader attachment? Kubota makes several models of stable, easy to use, small tractors that are focused on women/working people with small farms. I really Ike our Kubota.

[Hayla]

So nobody likes their ATV for anything? I’m surprised. Almost every small farm here uses them to do mowing, arena dragging and pulling a manure vacuum. As for snow I was looking at a snow blower attachment. I can always rent a tractor for occasional fencing jobs and yearly rough mowing/brush hogging

[walkinthewalk]

[QUOTE=Hayla;8811944]
So nobody likes their ATV for anything? I’m surprised. Almost every small farm here uses them to do mowing, arena dragging and pulling a manure vacuum. As for snow I was looking at a snow blower attachment. I can always rent a tractor for occasional fencing jobs and yearly rough mowing/brush hogging[/QUOTE]

I think folks are trying to suggest one piece of equipment that will multi-task as much as possible to save you money:)

We have two ATV’s. A 14 yr old Honda Rancher and an 8 yr old Kawasaki Prairie. Love them both but we have 23 acres and have other equipment to do the big stuff including mowing.

Our ATV’s are capable of pulling the 17 CuFt manure spreader, pulling an arena drag, or pulling a set of gang mowers, if we wanted them to. We don’t have an arena and my JD has a belly mower. They do check fences, pull the big dump cart, and help the neighbor get the occasional stray cow back where it belongs:)

[Frog_Pond]

I have 8 wooded, hilly acres in New England with 1 horse, 2 minis, no power or water at my barn that’s 800’ back in the woods. Not a ton of storage up there, so I’m regularly moving hay, grain, shavings & water. We get anywhere from 3’-9’ of snow per year and have mud season spring & fall.

I needed a daily water & feed mover and a snow plow most of all. I wanted a blade that could also push manure, something to pull a small trailer for moving wood, brush, tools, fencing, etc., pull a small spreader. I shopped tractors first, but, I ended up getting a 4WD Gator from John Deere. It’s gas, 625i, and I got the hydraulic plow blade. And aggressively treaded tires. Reviewers don’t love this model, but it’s been a-ok for me.

It’s a much more useful tool than I’d hoped for. It pushes snow like a dream – including up a 200’ rocky farm road. It carries 400 lbs of water with no trouble accelerating up that same road. It drags logs, pulls a small poly trailer, and I’m about to start yanking stumps with it. Carefully. I drive like a yahoo and this thing is very stable. My husband likes to push the manure pile around with it, and that works great, too – not as great as a tractor, but, much better than just with a wheelbarrow – I can keep the pile compacted nicely. I do tear up the roads a bit with the tread, but, I just try not to drive in the worst of the mud. It’s really nimble, comfortable, and I love it. It wasn’t cheap, but, what is in the farm-tool world?

[Frog_Pond]

Oh, and if I had 30k, I’d buy a Bobcat skid steer, too. But for now would rather have the Gator!

[2miniB]

The problem with skid steers is they tear the ground up, no matter how careful you are.

What about an RTV instead of an ATV? We have a Kubota. Can carry stuff in the back, tow a manure vac and plow. Ours has a roof, so there’s that too. It’s kinda like a tiny pickup truck in a way.

Personally, I’d stay away from the smaller Kubota tractors. They’re not good for any real heavy work. Just moving manure and mowing. Ours complains if we use it to move stone dust. It’s also fast and tippy. More so than everything else.

What about an older tractor? We have a smaller (40hp) Ford tractor that’s an absolute beast. Very stable and powerful. Indispensable if you get something else stuck and need to pull it. Can brush hog, mow, move stuff with bucket/forks, spread manure, etc. Really is one of the most versatile pieces of equipment we have. The little one came with our house, but we also have a big one we got from out west. Great condition and not a lot of hours on it.

Personally, I think a tractor is best for arena dragging since you can lift the drag up and back into the corners.

I’m not a big person and have quite a few physical issues. I have no trouble with the smaller tractor or RTV. Not tall enough for the big tractor. The skid steer really tosses you around a lot, which makes me a bit queasy.

[melula]

ATV is great for harrowing pastures, dragging the roads, and pulling a small manure spreader (not sure the volume but 5ish stalls worth). We had a 29 horse, 4 wheel drive, New Holland with a front end loader that was a great 10 acre tractor. It’s larger than the toy tractors but not intimidating. Mowing, moving snow, dragging arenas was too much for the ATV.

[Unfforgettable]

I’ve gotta say that, while I love my Kubota tractor, before I bought it I used my Polaris Ranger 700 UTV for a lot of things, including plowing a 1/4 mile driveway in Wisconsin winters. I had a winch mounted plow, and it handled everything but the biggest drifts with ease…and the big drifts just required being moved in little bites.

I’d go for one of the little sub-compact Kubota tractors with a loader for what you describe. A skidsteer is nice too, but they do tear up the ground when turning.

Also, maybe look into a Bobcat ToolCat, which is pricey but has all the attachments you could ever want plus UTV styling. http://www.bobcat.com/utility-products/toolcat/features

[Prime_Time_Rider]

We have a John Deere 2000 series tractor (about 20 or 22 hp) and I use it all the time for arena dragging, manure spreading and other farm chores. I haven’t found it to be tippy in the least. We have a front end loader mounted on it and my husband uses it frequently to move heavy objects like bales of hay. He has also used the front end loader to plow the driveway when we had a rare 12 inch snow fall. I can’t imagine NOT Having a small compact tractor for our farm.

[HungarianHippo]

we love our ATV. Handily pulls a large dump cart that’s often loaded with 400lb+ of cut wood and goes up hills. No problem pulling the ground-drive Newer spreader, and a drag/harrow.

We have a front-mounted snow plow (not hydraulic- it flexes outward when you back up, and then digs in to push the snow when going fwd.) It’s good enough for snowfall up to 5" or so. For heavier stuff, Mr HH will go out and do an “interim” plow rather than wait til it stops. And for the rare really big snow event, our neighbor comes over with his big-boy plow on his 3/4t truck.

For mowing we pull a 44" swisher trail cutter mower and it’s a fantastic tool if you don’t have a tractor. It’s a rough cut but that’s fine for pastures. It easily digests saplings up to 2-3" diameter and brush.

For going through blackberries, though, a pull-bhind mower is a huge disadvantage because, well obviously, you have to run it over first on the ATV before the mower gets it. I’ve cut down many a thornbush and multiflora rose, and you need to wear carhartts or other sturdy clothes or you’ll be badly scratched up.

The long hitch bar on the swisher can make for a fairly long total vehicle length, so if you have lots and lots of stumps to navigate around, that would also be a disadvantage. I mean, have no problem getting a close mow around my log jumps and the septic standpipes that are out there, but you do need to be careful about your turn radius. A front-mounted mower is probably more maneuverable. (I’m not aware of a front-mounted mower for ATVs though? Would be curious to see a link since our swisher is 10+yr old and will need replaced at some point).

Those stumps are your real problem-- hard to always avoid, every time, and no mowing equipment is going to be happy about hitting one. So you have this on-going risk of equipment damage. And danger-- accidentally get a tire up on one of those and it’s not that hard for anything to tip over.

So if I were you I’d price out and strongly consider getting a land-clearing contractor to do a one-time, good clear and stump-grubbing. Just solve the problem with one up-front cost, and then your equipment choices (and on-going headaches) are a lot simpler.

[BoyleHeightsKid]

[QUOTE=Hilary;8808587]
I would suggest a skidsteer - towing a little trailer with fencing supplies and the manure vacuum could be easily done with a riding lawn mower. The rest of it? You need a bigger machine. Skidsteers can move snow, mow with a brushhog and you’ll be safe in the roll cage in the sinkhole-y forested area.[/QUOTE]You can mow with a skidsteer and a brush hog?

My husbands uncle gave us an old skidsteer. I was unaware there were brush hog attachments for them. Off to Google!

[Hayla]

Thank you. For all of the responses.
I now have a lot to think about.
I live near seattle in the foothills. Everyone is a snow whimp including the horses here. A freak snowstorm might dump 2’. So the atv would probably do it.

I did a great clearing of the back a few years ago but my Mother got ill and died. I let it go for one year and Yikes!
I might rent some goats from the goats rescue and let them have at it.
Then if I just turn some youngstock out there every once in a while it should mostly keep it down. I do need a mower that can handle terrain that isn’t smooth lawn.
I rented a small kubota and It was so tippy. I did not like it at all. I mainly want to tow a manure vaccum, drag the arena and mow mostly grass. Being able to manage a nanure compost pit would be good also

[khall]

Take a look at the Kubota RTV, they come with many attachments with hydraulic capabilities. We have had ours for 10 yrs now, it is my right arm at the farm but also have a tractor for serious farm work. We have 43 acres. Also have 2 zero turn mowers to help with all of our grass. We like our toys!

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=Hayla;8816722]
Thank you. For all of the responses.
I now have a lot to think about.
I live near seattle in the foothills. Everyone is a snow whimp including the horses here. A freak snowstorm might dump 2’. So the atv would probably do it.

I did a great clearing of the back a few years ago but my Mother got ill and died. I let it go for one year and Yikes!
I might rent some goats from the goats rescue and let them have at it.
Then if I just turn some youngstock out there every once in a while it should mostly keep it down. I do need a mower that can handle terrain that isn’t smooth lawn.
I rented a small kubota and It was so tippy. I did not like it at all. I mainly want to tow a manure vaccum, drag the arena and mow mostly grass. Being able to manage a nanure compost pit would be good also[/QUOTE]

A 4x4 UTV with a dump box probably would fit you fine, other than the blade really is very wimpy, would work on a few inches of snow, but not drifts, it flips over when pushed.

[Equibrit]

I had an ATV and traded it in for one of these;
http://www.kubota.com/product/utilityVehicles/RTV900XT/RTV900XT.aspx
4 x 4 Diesel.
Cos it’s way more useful and there are many bolt on goodies available for it.
I don’t really want to lug fence boards and tools around my 20 acres any more, so this does it for me.

Tractors.
Renting tractors is not really a good basis for evaluation.
If you owned one you could spread the wheels to the maximum width and weight them with liquid ballast. I live on top of some horrendous inclines and own a compact tractor which crawls very safety around the place. So - don’t dismiss this option completely.

[Bluey]

Whatever you get, whatever brand, be sure you get something there is someone close to service it.